


heaven afire

by abscission



Series: North [1]
Category: Andromeda Six (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/M, M/M, POV Second Person, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Spoilers for episode 4, this is self-indulgent to the NINES, warnings for unhealthy palace upbringings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25227562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abscission/pseuds/abscission
Summary: Who are you trying to kid? You've never been able to walk away from him."Funny how you tried to kill me, then."You realize it's true as you say it, and the weight of this truth bows you over.
Relationships: Vexx Serif/Traveler
Series: North [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842853
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [through the firestorm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23855005) by [vaguelycloudy (outofcertainty)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outofcertainty/pseuds/vaguelycloudy). 



> MASSIVE spoilers for episode 4 :))) I tried to change up the conversations and keep things fresh, though, so from another angle: this fic would be confusing w/o having played Ep4. 
> 
> I had a spot of trouble rationalizing how Vexx's brainwashing/reconditioning really worked, and this was the result of that internal discussion. Also I wanted more angst. The MC here is technically a princess, but since I wanted to practice second person POV, I only left the name — which I hope is gender neutral enough, if it isn't I can take that out too — and didn't place any gender signifiers.
> 
> EDIT: i forgot the 'arrow' of a compass is called a needle /s

It took you a few days to notice the mark on your skin, pearlescent white as it was, faint against your Tilaari skin.

You stare at it, thankful for the privacy offered by your storage closet of a room. The crew of the _Andromeda Six_ is welcoming enough, but with your past a mystery and the future uncertain and now this, whatever it was, you’re glad to be away from prying eyes.

The needle readjusts itself to the right, no matter how you tilt your arm. It catches the fluorescent light and gleams.

It feels the same kind of familiar as the music box.

With nothing better to do, you follow the needle, out the door and down a walkway. Every few steps you stop and stare at the needle, mesmerized by its movements. Finally, you come to a halt before a maintenance panel against the outermost hull of the ship.

It is pointing, for all intents and purposes, into space.

Did you have an implant done, some time in your past? That’d be a question to ask Bash. Was this a Tilaari trait, that you forgot about? Ryona would have the answer to that.

The ship shudders, groans, and then a voice familiar in tone if not timbre says, “The airlock is in the other direction, stowaway.”

Damon is too fast for you. (Just like— who? He’s always reminded you of someone just beyond your mind’s reach.)

You arm is grabbed and the mark bared and you feel all of a sudden perversely exposed, and it is only after you’ve successfully snatched it back and pulled down the long sleeves of your jacket that you realize Damon had gone red in the face, too.

A rare expression.

“Sorry,” he says, clearing his throat. “Didn’t mean to peek at your mark.”

You grip your arm and glare at him. So it’s some sort of common knowledge?

“What is it pointing to? Something from my past?” You can’t quite keep the hope from your voice, and your stomach flips. He’s only going to make fun of you again.

His gaze is solemn. “That’s for you to find out.”

Must everything be a pick up line with him? You grit your teeth against the impatience, then shoulder past him without a word. You’re going to see Ryona.

***

_I didn’t miss you. I didn’t think of you, even for a second._

_Those words apply to me, too,_ you didn’t say.

You’re so dizzy with warring emotions you can’t think.

Your arm is burning. The compass is glowing, your whole body is glowing, traitorous Tilaari skin. (It’s why you drown yourself in coats too large for you.)

When you asked what the compass pointed to, Ryona only smiled and said you’ll know when you’ve found it, but the waves of joy and contentment coming from the mark clashes with horror and disappointment in your stomach. You want to throw up.

The only consolidation you have is that Vexx seems to be going through the same turmoil.

It only makes you mad.

He used you. He left you. He made pretty promises and dashed them apart. How dare he feel these same emotions?

Words catch in your throat, piling up like bodies under your tongue. Mother and brother and sister, none of whom spoke to you, none who made an effort, all dead. You remember now, how you never talked much.

The anger grows and grows, until your hands are shaking, your jaw hurts, and all that fabricated, bio-wired emotion is drowned out by the thrumming rage beneath your luminescent skin.

Vexx tells you to lose the crew. You spit in his face.

Hurt. It crosses his face in a flash: the frown deepens, the hard set of his mouth crumples, his eyes soften. He looks familiar.

The same emotion slams into you like a gravitational slingshot. Questions bubble to the surface of your anger. Does he still care? Is he lying? Why did he do it?

(Ryona had been very clear a soulbond is not an empathic one, but it’s hard to believe.)

The expression is gone in a flash, as is he. He leaves you in the alleyway, curled in on yourself, the compass dimming, dimming.

***

You tell yourself that you’re glad to be away, that Bash’s hands felt like the coolness of salvation instead of—

You grit your teeth, shaking the thought away.

The cargo bay is too brightly lit after the dimness of the club and the alleyway where your world was shaken. You maintain the silence you’ve sunk into, only breaking it to declare your reclaimed status as Apolia Le’Jean Peg’asi, last of your name, and after waiting for everyone to say their piece (as Mother taught you) you leave.

You didn’t say a word about Vexx Serif or your mark, even though they all saw how hard you gripped your arm.

***

The café.

You remember it fine.

A cozy place, tucked away in a corner street, cobbled streets and outdoor seating and little cakes under a golden sky.

What you don’t understand and can’t remember is how you got there in the first place.

You are Tilaari. Your skin is blue, your hair is purple, your eyes ghastly yellow. How did you manage to gain such golden memories with as alien a face?

(You refuse to think about Vexx under the Seleotan sun, aglow with happiness, smiling over coffee, and the answering contentment in your heart. He doesn’t deserve to put these emotions in you. Not after what he did.

What lingering feelings you still possess _must_ be caused by the mark. _If only there was away to be rid of this,_ you think bitterly, fingers digging into skin.)

***

Ven’dela was the one to tell you about it.

“It’s......something Tilaari,” she said, dreamily, sing-song. “I have one too!”

And she pulled up her lantern sleeves, showing you her silver compass rose. It caught the sunlight, shimmering bright against her pink skin. She waved her arm around, demonstrating how the needle, sliding against her skin, always corrected itself to point unerringly northwest.

“It comes in later,” she advised, patting your hair, after you worriedly showed her the empty face of your compass rose.

You calmed a little. Ven’dela never meant ill, and back then you could still draw comfort from your blood.

Only on the cusp of adolescence, you had already been introduced to the concept of lack. Ven’dela had been the first to show you any attention outside of official duties, and she was already withdrawing—you couldn’t keep her strange, selective attention for long, and her ignorance hurt worse than the others’. Later, she became as unreachable as Mother and Tavaris, and it was a long time before you had Nerissa.

“Cover it up, I say,” she said, tugging a magenta curl over her shoulder, pale eyes fixed upon a far away star. “Mother will buy you long sleeves.” And then she’s gone into herself, humming tunelessly.

Only thirteen years old and Ven’dela was already a warning tale to you.

You don’t want to end up like any of them.

***

You never wore short sleeves again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is basically episode 4 on fast forwards.

Cursa is at once riotously joyful and profoundly depressing, none of which are words that can describe your life in the palace. You pay attention. These are the people Nerissa wanted to help.

(That doesn’t stop you from putting up your hood to hide your hair as you move through the noisy streets, nervous at being spotted and recognized.

Ryona moves with enviable confidence.)

Perhaps Zane was moved by the conviction in your voice, perhaps he knew who you were and grasped the experience you were speaking from, but he was convinced by your words. A first.

It could’ve gone better.

You stand in an alley, fighting to catch your breath, the gutters overflowing with rainwater, panic humming in your veins. You’ve left the fight behind, and with it, all shreds of familiarity. You’ve never felt more alone.

_You can stay lost._

It’s a laughable thought, and you dismiss it as soon as it forms. Everyone will know who you are, the moment you lower your hood. There’s nowhere you can run except to Tilaarin, and those ports are closed.

You arm burns a second before _his_ voice sounds behind you. Despair swamps you as thoroughly as the rain, unbroken by the mark’s insistence of hope.

Since the damnable encounter in Nos Vega, you’ve not looked at the compass-mark. The silver needle, once a source of comfort, now makes you nauseous.

Too tired to knock away the offered hand, (gloved, you notice; Royal Guards didn’t wear gloves as part of their uniform,) you simply glare at it until he retracts it.

“I thought I told you to lose the crew.”

“I thought I told you to get lost,” you rasp. You are no more prepared to face him than the previous time. Your mouth is dry, and the rainwater that seeps in tastes like tears.

(You should’ve been more adamant that Calderon gave you a gun.)

You push yourself upright, and the rain-soaked hood falls away.

He is wary, his frame wiry with tension. His eyes flick to your hair for a heartbeat.

“Do you want to die with them? I have a job to do,” he says, uncharacteristically monotone. But maybe you never knew him. “It doesn’t concern you.”

The mark makes another attempt to give you hope. It’s itching now, demanding to be seen. You ignore it. If only your legs weren’t shaking, you think you’d walk away from him, right now.

(Who are you trying to kid? You’ve never been able to walk away from him.)

“Funny how you tried to kill me, then.”

You realize it’s true as you say it, and the weight of this truth bows you over.

He didn’t just betray your trust and your- your- (you swallow, finally admitting it,) your _love_ , but also the sanctity of life.

Vexx makes a small, wounded noise that you’ve never heard before.

It’s harder and harder to hold on to anger. You allow yourself a glance at his face.

His eyes are wide, green as memory. He’s no longer tense, as though puppet strings have been cut. His lips are parted in surprise—

You remember stealing glances at him, (the airy light-filed corridors of the palace feels like another lifetime,) wondering how it would feel to kiss him, and the memory hurts like a stab wound. Your mark has given up, pulsing only faintly. _Good,_ you think. _Easier this way._

“What I—?” He begins, and trails off immediately, lost for words.

“Why did you do it?” Your voice is faint, almost drowned by the rain.

A crack of thunder cuts off whatever Vexx had began to say, and with a flash of lightning a crazed look comes into his eyes. For the first time since you escaped the massacre of your family you fear for your life.

Two figures swoop out from the shadows. Ryona and Damon wrestle Vexx into submission, snatching his rifle away, even if Vexx does sock Damon in the jaw.

Ryona hurries over to you.

“Anything hurt?”

Her voice is like a balm. You let her fuss over you for a second, soaking up the gentle attentiveness. When she tugs on your arm, however, you shake your head and holds it behind you. It’s a childish avoidant tactic, but you don’t want to talk to her here, where Damon can hear.

“—these two know each other.” Damon raises his voice, catching your attention. Vexx laughs, an ugly choking sound.

“Still holding the cards to yourself, Peg’asi?” he sneers. “Still hiding? Still the naive little kid?”

Ryona locks up in anger, offended in your stead. You are too wrung out for it. Her steadying hand on your elbow tightens. “What’s he talking about, Apolia?”

Questions, questions. It’s only polite to answer one, but as the tense silence drags on your gaze finds Damon’s holstered gun and linger there. You’re not sure who you want to shoot: yourself, or Vexx.

Vexx knows how much you hate being called naive, how you studied to disprove the label. And now he throws it in your face.

Suddenly, you find yourself looking at Ryona, gun drawn, spitting, “I say we kill this K’Merii scum before he hurts anyone else.”

“Whoa...” Damon puts up a hand. “Medic, remember?”

Your soulmark pulses with pain. You know exactly where the needle is pointing. You feel ran through.

Ryona looks at you, looks at Vexx, then at the arm you’ve tightly wound. Her golden eyes widen at the conclusion. The gun lowers.

“Is there... something you want to tell us?” she asks, delicately.

You meet her caring, worried gaze, and you see Ven’dela as she should’ve been. You parse the compassion in her voice and hear Nerissa if she’d been Queen.

Holding everything in silence has been a form of denial, but you can’t shut out the sisters who tried, despite everything, to connect.

“He was a Royal Guard in the- in my- I knew him from the palace.”

“He works for Zovack.” Damon’s voice is harsh and cutting. “Let’s haul him back. We’ll find a use for him.” He throws you the comms. “Lead the way, Navigator.”

You silently thank him for the title and the implicit claim that comes with. _You belong with us,_ the title says. _There’s a place for you here._

***

You all traipse back to the bunker like a couple of drowned rats.

Alisa stages an appropriately Alisa welcome, full of veiled threats and barbed quips. You only feel more tired, listening to her verbal spar.

She reminds you of no one, and places your quiet, stifled, curated upbringing in a harsh light. If this is the brand of politics on Cursa—you remember the controlled chaos of Nos Vega—with more variation everywhere the crown doesn’t reach, how are you going to succeed the throne and do it justice?

Damon drags Vexx away, Ryona trailing them.

You linger, watching Alisa talk to her men.

Is this what a queen looks like?

When you ask her the question, it surprises you both.

“Do I think I’m fit to lead?” She echoes, then looks you up and down.

You’re pretty sure you know what she’s sizing up: someone even more alien than Ryona, product of a throwaway diplomatic arrangement with the Goldis throne, shrinking into a soaked jacket, trying and failing to hide all signs of Tilaari parentage.

You’ll never be as confidently radiant as Nerissa, daughter of the sun and as fiery as the sky.

“Cursa isn’t the dumpster of Seleota. I won’t let it. Cursa will change, if I have to drag it there kicking and screaming.” Alisa’s voice is laced with a familiar steel. “And ain’t no monarchy or K’Merii going to stand in my way.”

“You’re looking for secession.” Not a month off the throne, and you’re already loosing crown territory. What will be done to bring Cursa back into the fold? Another loveless marriage?

Independent planetary governing bodies will only lead to war and destruction—history’s taught you that. But so had monarchy, as proven by High King Fenris’s dismal rule, so perhaps alliance is the way to go in this era. With that in mind, you force yourself to smile.

“I hope it works out for you. I really do.”

Alisa seems taken aback by this. “You sound sincere but you don’t _look_ it. You’ll understand if I usually come across the opposite combination in my line of work, Your Highness.”

—and your threshold for social interaction has been hit. You turn to leave.

“Whoa there, I never said being complicated turned me off!”

...Ryona had been right. You can barely stand one Damon. You absolutely cannot stomach two.

Alisa studies you like she studied Vexx, and you try not to squirm under the scrutiny. “Someone’s on your mind, and it’s not me. No?”

Your siblings are always on your mind, ghosting every action and thought, but it’s the tone that makes you think she meant something else, and the moment your thoughts go in that direction you slam on the brakes.

“Maybe there are more important things to think about than a crush,” you manage past a stiff jaw, but Alisa only smirks.

“All’s fair in love and war, goes the saying, and the greatest things are always done for love.” She catches your yellow gaze and adds, “Or the lack of it. Also, I didn’t say anything about a crush.”

You resist the urge to throw up your hands.

Shouldering past Alisa turns out to be a fraught decision, because she grabs your elbow and says, “I know that crew is a bunch of thick skulls sharing one brain cell, but Serif is a K’Merii and they don’t train their soldiers lax. If I’ve noticed, he’ll notice. I don’t know or care about the history you people have, but if you don’t want to get hurt, you need to watch yourself better.”

She lets go of you.

“Take care, Peg’asi. Now run along, tra-la, get gone.”

***

After a quick shower and a bite to eat, you admit that you’re hiding.

_Still hiding. Still the naive child._

No. Vexx isn’t allowed to be right anymore. You don’t look at your compass-mark.

You stride out of your room, intent on getting to the bridge to start learning the controls for your role, and runs smack into June in the corridor.

He stumbles back with a startled noise. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to—”

You raise your hands to wave away the apology.

When you try to move past him, however, he shifts, as though hesitant to stop you. It was painful to realize June was avoiding you, when the haze of anger and hurt from Nos Vega had passed. June had been nice to you, and you didn’t want to lose more connections when you have so little good ones left.

So you stop, looking at him quizzically.

“Apolia, can we talk?”

You grimace. You’re not very good at that, if he hadn’t noticed.

“I’ll try,” you say.

He signs explosively, then leans against the wall, gathering his thoughts.

“These past weeks you’ve spent with us... You’re not your father, that much is clear. I still—.” He stops, shakes his head, then starts over. “I’m sorry for pushing you away. You’re not your family, and I let my own issues come between us. I took that out on you and I’m sorry.”

You stick your hands in your pockets to stop them wringing together. It isn’t in June’s place to apologize. Whatever did _he_ do wrong? If anyone was at fault, it'd be you, for shutting down so completely.

When you say nothing, his head snaps up. “You don’t believe me? Apolia, please believe me when I say I’m sorry—“

June, along with the rest of the crew, is a creature of words. If silence was a coping method for the people in the palace, then you have no use for it here. If you let the past catch up to you, you’ll be no more than another royal corpse.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

Relief floods across June’s expression. “I don’t deserve a friend like you, Apolia. Thank you. Will you listen to my story, as explanation for my behaviour?”

“Only if you want to share,” you reply firmly. Friends? How open these people must be. You remember how even Damon was quick to assure you of a place here, and become more determined to do right by the crew. “Anything that has to do with my family must be unpleasant.”

He smiles then, and half sits, half slumps onto a protruding metal casing like it’s a bench. “I do want to tell you. You deserve to hear it.” He pats the space beside him, attempting cheer. “Come sit! It’s a long story.”

So you sit. And he tells you, in stops and starts and a lot of tears, about his past: the labs, a brother called Julian and names claimed from the world. He twists the bracelets on his wrist, and when he’s finished with the story, you remember how Nerissa had comforted you after Tavaris said mean things. You’re not taller than June, but you reach for his hands anyway.

His tan skin looks similar enough to Nerissa’s rich brown under yours that it soothes you, too.

“I didn’t know,” you say quietly, as June clings to your hands like a lifeline and cries out his soul. “I’m sorry.”

Ecko probably did. Ecko probably had a hand if not in the design, then the approval of such projects. A member of Orion’s board of directors by twenty-five and the head of his own lab at thirty, he knew everything there was to know about the direction of experiments on Orion.

Then Nerissa knew, too.

You wait out June’s tears, thinking. Occasionally, you sweep a finger over scarred knuckles.

Rulers do not operate alone, and Nerissa had been consolidating her allies. Her closest and strongest allies so far as you knew were your oldest siblings—and their jurisdictions: Auberon, Ecko, Elettra, Sorenn. Would Nerissa have stopped the experiments? Or would she have had Ecko continue them in secret?

You shake yourself. There’s no point in assigning blame. Dead people are above reproach. They’ve paid the ultimate price. All you can do is learn, remember, and move on.

June is quiet.

“Thank you for sharing something precious with me,” you say. “Now I understand more of the world.”

He laughs a little at that, voice still thick with tears. “It’s hard to remember you’re actually a Peg’asi when I talk to you. You’re always so serious. Lighten up!”

“Then you teach me how,” you say, sincere. “You are more than what that lab made you, just as I will become more than a legacy of my father.”

June stares at you, eyes wide.

Before he can respond, a deafening siren goes off.

“That’s not ours,” June says, straightening, whole demeanor changing in a blink. You make to draw your hands back, but he grips them harder and pulls you up by them. “I’m going to see what’s happening. You head up to the bridge, I’ll send the Captain or Ayame after you.”

“I’m not going to hide!” you exclaim. Vexx’s words chafe at you again. Now’s a good time to start taking your own advice about the past.

“Alright.” He acquiesces startlingly fast. You had expected to make a case for yourself, but June simply tells you to stay close and then sprints for the dock.

***

You can’t help but glance over to the door of the storage room where you’ve glimpsed _him_ , even as the captain places an impatient hand at the small of your back, chivvying you along to the bridge.

Underneath your sleeve, the compass-mark prickles. It’s an annoying, persistent reminder of the past you salvaged and he severed — out of nowhere, you wonder if your Mother had endured this ceaseless itching all of her life, then you wonder why it never occurred to you before.

The bridge’s orange glow shocks you out of empty sun rooms and distant parent figures. Ayame buckles you into the navigator’s seat, chattering assuredly away, grounding you in the present.

Take off and the flashing console in front of you handily lets you put those thoughts to the side.

***

(Ven’dela might have introduced you to your biology, but it was Nerissa who told you the important things.

Someone to hold you when things got hard. Someplace to rest when going got tough. A place of comfort, that you can return to. Safety.

When your compass found its north, you thought you’d found the one.)

***

You chicken out at the last second, staying outside the storage room. Bash, bless his heart, opts to keep you company. (It doesn’t stop Vexx’s eyes from finding yours in the split second the door stays open, nor the way your heart jumps.)

Damon, who waltzed in ten minutes ago dripping with confidence—“Serif! On the receiving end of shit missions again, I see!”—now emerges, grim-faced.

“Shit out of luck?” Bash greets him, grinning.

“You saw everything, don’t pretend you can’t read lips.”

“So we try again later.”

“If he still doesn’t talk I’ll bring herbicide and a crowbar,” Damon mutters. He turns to you.

You still your fingers, not realizing they’ve been plucking at your sleeve the whole time.

“So? You going to face him? Uncover this... bright past you were talking about?” He’s mocking words the blissfully-amnesic you once said. _Surely there must’ve been good things,_ or something like that.

“There’s always the airlock,” you retort, unwilling to rise to his bait.

Damon barks a laugh, but Bash looks concerned. “For you or him?”

The three of you stare at the door to the storage room.

“Ryona’s real mad at him,” Bash says out of nowhere. “But of course as a medic and as a decent person she and I do not condone torture as a method of information extraction.”

“No one’s going t—,” Damon says at the same time you run a hand through your hair and make for the door.

Demand answers, maybe punch him, then leave. Rip it off, like a Band-Aid.

“Whoa!” Bash grabs your arm.

“Now hold on—” Damon cuts off your path.

You stop, miffed. Gently, you extract your hand from Bash’s metal grip. He meant well, but he’s crushing your wrist a little.

“I’m not going to be the one to explain to Ry why her favorite patient is a smear on the floor,” Damon says, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets and looming over you. “Especially at the hands of a K’Merii dog.”

“I don’t need your permission,” you say.

“I outrank you,” he replies, eyes narrowed.

“I can get the information you need.”

Damon and Bash both pause at the certainty in your voice. (And if you can’t, then it’s solid proof you never knew him at all, and then maybe you’ll stop- _feeling_.)

“Now you’re chatty?” He shakes his head. “I’ll let you talk to the carrot head if you tell me your history with him. No more of that wishy-washy crap. I want the facts.”

You open your mouth to tell him it’s none of his business, hands already clenched into fists, anger simmering quietly beneath your skin, when Bash places a hand on your shoulder.

“We can’t work on faulty information, Apolia, and besides, aren’t you one of us now?” His earnest eyes trip you up with guilt. “Trust us.”

You’re doing it again, the hiding and the keeping secrets.

“It’s not a question of trust,” you say, quietly.

Damon leans against a wall. “I don’t care what it is. If you don’t tell us, you don’t get to talk to Serif. That’s the deal, take it or leave it." He stares at you expectantly.

Bash glares at him but doesn’t add anything.

“And you’ll tell the rest of the crew?” you ask.

“ _We_ don’t keep secrets."

That’s good. You won’t have to repeat yourself. You take in a fortifying breath.

“He was a Royal Guard of my private retinue in the palace, and he betrayed its secret passageways to facilitate the coup d’etat.”

You release the breath in a rush. There, it’s all out there. The important parts, anyway. The other parts really aren’t their business.

Bash gasps.

Damon frowns like a thundercloud. He doesn’t move.

“A deal’s a deal,” you remind him, then walk past him to open the door.

“I’ll get the body bag,” you hear him mutter as you step into the storage room.

This time, the wash of emotions from your soulmark is expected. Joy, relief, anticipation, all buzzing under your skin. You tug the sleeves lower, willing your heart to slow. If you start glowing again like in Nos Vega, you’d welcome Damon’s bodybag.

The door slides shut.

Pushing aside those feelings, you dig for anger to straighten your back.

Vexx doesn’t even look at you. His wrists are cuffed together, and he’s slumped between several crates. He glares at the ceiling, a muscle in his jaw jumping.

The silence drags on.

“Speak _up_ ,” he growls, suddenly, lunging upright.

You hold your ground.

His eyes are heavy-lidded and empty, and you find strength in their strangeness.

“Why did you choose me?”

“This was stupid of them _and_ you, but I guess that can’t be helped.” He is talking past you.

You bite back a grimace, his actions reminding you of old conversation attempts with Tavaris, and how he disregarded everything you managed to say. Is Vexx purposefully pushing your buttons, or is this Generic Asshole BehaviourTM? Doesn’t matter.

“Of all the royals, why did you choose me?” You press on. “Is it because I’m the youngest? The most easily manipulated?”

You can almost put yourself in his shoes. Sent to the palace on an infiltration mission to discover the secret passageways, and instead of having to risk your neck loitering and being suspicious, befriend a naive, impressionable royal child and have them do all the digging for you. And of them all, of course the youngest, most isolated, the quietest—anyone would see the chance there.

You start to glow, but this time its with disappointment and anger. You have to know if your weakness was the reason for their deaths, for Nerissa and Ven’dela...

(All those happy memories, hard won, hidden from your siblings so they won’t take it away, and now they’re all tainted with betrayal and insincerity.)

He stares at you with the same blank gaze. It’s starting to unnerve you.

“Well? Am I getting an answer or not, Vexx Serif?”

As his name leaves your lips, you realize you’ve never said it out loud since the coup, and that it betrays too much of your true self.

Too much.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve got a crush on me... just when I thought you couldn’t be more pathetic.” He drops his head back, hitting the wall with a dull thud.

You cringe away from him, hands flying up to hug your elbows. This is why. _This_ is why you always kept your mouth shut, never said a word you didn’t need to.

The urge to pull up your hood is a physical ache. (There’s a different sort of relief, too, because this means he doesn’t know about your compass-mark. The younger you had been cautious. It’s a small victory: this, at least, can’t be used against you.)

It’s a little late, but you turn the embarrassment into anger, then turn it outwards.

“What the hell makes you think that?” You spit out, at the same time he says, sounding weak and confused, “Wait, no—”

It draws you up short.

He rocks forwards, curling up as though in pain, and heaves shallow, panting breaths. Several heartbeats pass like this, and the worry that you feel is genuine, probably.

“Are you... okay?” You step closer hesitantly, not sure what you’re going to do. What if he is injured, and he’s just been hiding it so well the crew didn’t notice? Should you report it, now or later? You do have a knife on you, what if the crew thinks you’re the type of person who would hurt others?

You’d be fully justified in this case, but still.

He wears red all over, so you can’t even scan him for injuries.

Unable to help yourself, you reach out—

He straightens and glares at your hand, but with much less heat than before. You retract it slowly.

 _Well,_ you think grimly, _this is a twisted tableau of us in reverse._

It would be pointless to demand answers now, and the atmosphere has changed, too.

Sighing, ignoring the insistent buzz of your mark (much stronger, given the proximity), you ask if any K’Merii agents are following the ship, and if they know a royal is on board.

“Don’t know,” he says, rolling one shoulder in a shrug. “Could always be someone following you.”

You wait patiently, not moving. Personality facets don’t change, and you’ve annoyed him into compliance with your endless practiced patience more than once in the past. Apparently, he hates the ‘expectant look’ you give.

A minute passes. Two. You idly wonder if Bash is watching, and if he’s getting anxious, and fidgeting.

“Don’t do that,” Vexx snaps, one finger tapping against his thigh. “I’ll tell you.”

...so you _do_ know him. The back-and-forth of it all stinks of irony. A laugh chokes your throat. How can you two still share this, with everything he’s done?

Your eyes sting, and that’s not fair either, so you only blink, refusing to brush your face or move an inch.

His hands curl into fists, his eyes cutting away from your face.

“Maybe you should get Reznor in here again,” he says. “Obviously, you don’t like being in the same room with me.”

You shake your head. “You’re not throwing me aside a second time, Serif.” Last names are safer.

“I didn’t—!” He sputters, nearly getting to his feet in indignation. Something you said? But the burst of energy leaves as fast as it came, and all he does is fall back against the crates, causing a ruckus, eyes wide and never leaving yours.

“You left,” you point out with a calm you don’t feel. “You were acting weird and then you disappeared. You were running back to Zovack for the report, I suppose.”

And to think you braved Elettra’s attitude to ask her where the barracks are. You thought maybe he was sick, or worse, had been reassigned. (If he was reassigned, you had the childish plan to pack your bags and follow your compass, now that you knew who it pointed to.) Regardless, the barracks would have a record. It saved your life, running off so soon after the reception, but...

“I must have been,” he mutters, which catches your attention.

“You don’t know?”

He shakes his head, brow furrowed heavily. “It’s blank. I remember the palace, and then I’m back at base.”

“Maybe you hit your head,” you say, drily.

He makes to laugh, and then a shudder grips him and he bends double again, wracked with the strange pain.

You sigh, and squat so you’re at eye level. His breathing is laboured and loud, and despite it all it hurts you to see him suffering.

“Just tell me what the crew needs to know, and I’ll get the medic in to see you.”

“Why do you,” he says, fighting to control his breathing, “still care?”

You hum, harmonizing with the humming of your mark, and leave it at that.

“Men under my command are tailing you, but between the C-D and the Crimson Dusk, they’d have lost you by now.” Vexx raises his head. He looks lost himself. “There are no other trackers. They don’t know A6 has a Peg’asi.”

“And you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have any trackers on you?”

He blinks, and a slow smile tugs at his lips, small and gentle and so familiar you stop breathing and barely keep your feet.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

You fumble back, cursing your suddenly-singing mark and the blushing and the pounding heart and _of course you’re glowing like a lamp_ , running for the door that’s two steps away.

“Apolia.”

You feet stop in their tracks completely of their own volition.

 _Move!_ You order them, but your entire being has lit up at the echo of someone you once loved in the way Vexx called for you and won’t obey your brain.

“I didn’t, you know, I didn’t tell him about you.”

“What does that mean.” You’re tired again, too tired for his games.

“Halfway through my mission he asked me if I was feeling alright, if I need a transfer, because I was acting different. I didn’t tell him shit.”

You wait, by the door. You’ve asked your question.

He laughs into his hands. “Nothing. You should’ve let that lady shoot me.”

You leave.

Before the door closes, you hear him yell, and then a crash, as he punches a crate.

Bash winces as he welcomes you back with an arm slung around your shoulders. Damon doesn’t stop glaring at the floor.

“So?” Bash asks.

“We’re clear, and Zovack doesn’t know I’m here yet.”

“Let’s report to the bridge.” Damon sweeps off without waiting for either of you.

Bash nudges you forwards and you follow Damon, with Bash bringing up the rear.

You smile to yourself at their protectiveness. It’s nice to feel safe, after so long.

**Author's Note:**

> how does the compass rose work? read fic #2! want more worldbuilding? read fic #2! yes I'm shamelessly self-promoting. come shout at me about vexx on my [tumblr](https://burntheupholstery.tumblr.com/).


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